The game of paintball is one in which two or more teams try to eliminate the other team or capture one another's flags or proceed through a simulated combat course. The players on the teams each carry a compressed gas-powered marker or gun that shoots paintballs—gelatin or plastic spherical capsules of approximately 68 caliber which contain a colored liquids. When a player is hit with a paintball from an adversary's gun, the paintball ruptures and leaves a colored “splat” on the hit player who is then “out” and must leave the game.
Quite unlike conventional explosive-propelled munitions, paintballs are relatively round and have an exterior formed from a semi-rigid gelatinous compound. The gelatinous compound is known to be affected somewhat by such variables as temperature and relative humidity, and is of course somewhat frangible. During a firing sequence, paintballs on occasion lodge against each other or other objects and block the passageway from the feeding chamber, resulting in a jam. While jamming is not new, knowledge from explosive munitions m is of little use with the very different paintballs.
As the game of paintball has grown in sophistication, semiautomatic paintball marker—guns that sequentially fire individual paintballs as fast as the trigger can be repeatedly pulled—have become more prevalent. It is advantageous and increases the chances of success to be able to fire rapidly and continuously in order to increase the chances of hitting an opponent with a paintball. The high firing rate capability of semiautomnatic paintball markers has necessitated the use of paintball bulk loader devices which can be used to fill guppies or pods carried by the players. The paintball canisters called pods or guppies generally holds from 100 to 150 paintballs and are most commonly used by paintball enthusiasts. Guppies are the supplemental magazine of choice used to fill the marker hoppers. The pods or guppies, which are used to fill the magazine hoppers of the markers, typically carry a number of paintballs, depending on the capacity of the marker feed hopper.
While the compressed gas cylinders used to propel the paintballs can provide up to 1000 or more individual charges or shots, the magazines or hoppers attached to the paintball guns typically are limited to holding only about one or two hundred paintballs. While large supplemental hoppers have been used which are attached to the marker hopper to increase firepower, these supplemental hoppers or paintball containers are quite unwieldly and limit the players maneuverability and gun movement.
Several guppies are typically carried on a belt of a player and are individually removed, opened and emptied into a paintball gun hopper before the hopper runs out of paintballs. These guppies can be quickly used up when the game action becomes fast and furious and the time needed to refill the guppies when they are emptied can affect the outcome of a game. It is obviously an undesirable situation when a player has sufficient compressed gas to continue shooting, but runs out of paintball ammunition.
A player without paintball ammunition is particularly vulnerable insofar as the distinctive sound of a paintball marker being fired with an empty hopper is easily recognized by other players. As a result, an opponent can rush upon and shoot the player with the empty gun without risk of being shot by that player.
A number of patents have been directed toward magazines for use with paintball guns to increase their usable paintball supply but little attention has been directed toward the need to quickly fill the guppies during the course of a game and prior to the beginning of the start of the game.
Basic paintball magazines are little more than large hoppers with a feed tube extending therefrom, a sort of closed funnel through which paintballs are dropped into the firing chamber. The passageway ultimately tapers to isolate single paintballs for deposit into the firing chamber. Usually this is not a gradual taper, but a sudden transition, to reduce the likelihood of two balls getting stuck against each other. However, when one paintball does lodge against the other, the user must shake the gun to free the balls.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,454 issued Feb. 1, 1994 discloses a marker magazine with sloping ends and side walls that lead downward to a tubular passageway referred to as a feed tube. Gravitational forces tend to urge the paintballs to the feed tube, as is known in the prior art. The feed tube is connected to the firing chamber of the gun, so that as the paintballs are carried through the tube, they are fed into the firing chamber. Occasionally, a pair of paintballs will simultaneously drop into the opening of the feed tube so that neither can pass, leading to a jam.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,305,367 issued Oct. 23, 2001 is directed toward a battery driven agitator in a hopper feeder for a paintball gun. The hopper feeder is a housing with a rear opening covered by a hinged lid through which paintballs are loaded and an outlet opening leading into a feed tube portion. The feed tube is preferably removably received in the paintball inlet of the paintball gun.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,975, issued May 2, 2000 is also directed toward a reservoir which holds paintballs and feeds paintballs into the open hopper of the paintball marker (pistol, rifle). A guppy is shown in FIG. 12 and different reservoirs are shown in FIGS. 11 and 14. The spout of the reservoir is a one piece plastic container with a connector member having a bayonet connection.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,157 issued May 22, 2001 is directed to a paintball gun loader speed collar. The collar attaches onto a guppy which is then mounted to a loader magazine from Brass Eagle.